This blog is totally independent, unpaid and has only three major objectives.
The first is to inform readers of news and happenings in the e-Health domain, both here in Australia and world-wide.
The second is to provide commentary on e-Health in Australia and to foster improvement where I can.
The third is to encourage discussion of the matters raised in the blog so hopefully readers can get a balanced view of what is really happening and what successes are being achieved.

Tuesday, March 01, 2016

When The ABC Is Reporting HealthIT In WA Is A Mess Things Must Be Pretty Grim.

When this appeared last week I suspect most of us thought all the bad news was out. We have this:

But premier warns it could still eventuate.

The WA Corruption and Crime Commission has opted not to investigate the state health department's botched multi-million dollar IT contract with Fujitsu, but the state's premier has warned the department could still end up in front of the anti-corruption watchdog.

Technology experts say a plan to digitise hospitals was destined to fall short, and their warnings were ignored.

Key points:

Experts say problems should have been picked up sooner

Funds for multi-million dollar IT contract mismanaged

Fears IT problems could derail the Perth Children's Hospital project

With pockets full from the mining boom, Western Australia sunk billions of dollars into the introduction of "new hospital IT" — trying to bring hospitals into the 21st century and make paper records disappear.

Instead, implementing the new technology has been costly and plagued with problems.

It has caused lengthy delays at one major hospital, while systems have been shelved at another hospital because technical glitches posed an unacceptable risk to patients.

Dr Knight said she raised concerns in the years before the hospital opened, but they fell on deaf ears.

"I think it's far more complex than what the people who were in positions of power in 2009, 2010 and 2011 actually believed," she said.

Problems have also been identified at the newly opened St John of God Midland Public Hospital.

The technology allowing health systems to share information with one another was found to be seriously flawed and could not be implemented.

The extent of the problem was outlined in an internal memo from October 2015, a month before the hospital opened.

It found that when Midland Hospital tried to update patient notes, it would override or delete existing patient information.

"Due to the incomplete data being sent by St John of God Midland Public Hospital which 'overwrites' the existing Department of Health data, an extreme clinical risk presented whereby public patient data, including alerts and allergies for each patient... would be inaccurate and not up to date."

IT experts are still working to fix the problem and the system is not expected to go live until later this year.

Paraphrasing from the above article we have My Health Record, PCEHR, NEHTA and the Department of (e)Health all wrapped up into one GREAT BIG PARCEL -------- Dr Knight said:1. "the complexity of the health system was underestimated",2. "IT systems were never going to live up to expectations"3. "A one-size-fits-all approach, which is the way we've taken it, in my view just won't work"4. "It's inevitable that this would happen" and5. "it's inevitable it will happen again."

Billions wasted once again and (wait for it) the Government says WE HAVE TO STOP SPENDING!! OMG.

Now cross to the Federal Minister. She has to make savings in Health. Martin Bowles has provided her with a range of estimates for the E-Health line in the Budget. Then this arrives from WA, helpful words from a friendly Premier. Manna from heaven! Now is your chance, Ms Ley, though "cutting the losses" will make her a very lonely Little Brown Hen. Unless ...

a) Clean water and sewage disposal (that's easy, engineers have been doing it for years)

b) Good eating habits and exercise/activity. That's much harder.

Good eating habits come from education. According to Dr Michael Mosely on ABC radio the other day, in the UK doctors receive no training/education in nutrition. That may well be the case in Australia. Even if doctors do study nutrition here, it wouldn't hurt to have a serious program of education in current, up-to-date research for medicos

The government could also

a) teach children in school about nutrition and exercise.andb) take on the vested interests in food and big pharma.andc) stop expenditure growth on technology. This will force the health profession to set priorities and improve efficiencies. If they want new technology, they will have to stop spending on old technology, and/or make savings in other areas such as unnecessary and out-of date tests and treatments.

Looking at shiny new technology for answers is simplistic. Avoidance of a problem is the cheapest and best way to go.

Ms Ley won't cut her healthIT spending because hasn't got any idea how to explain the current humongous wastage of failed eHealth projects. The doctors won't help her understand because they haven't been able to ever since NEHTA was born. And anyway if she keeps kicking the can down the road it will eventually become someone else's problem. So eHealth expenditure won't be cut Martin Bowles and his eHealth advisers will see to that.

Bernard, thanks for the reminder about Michael Mosely. From his gig with SBS Insight last night, it sounds like the prime motivator for him to tackle his insulin resistance was the ultrasound scan that quantified his intraabdominal fat. Now, do you remember DoHA mailing out paper measuring tapes a few years ago? The aim of the project to to get those with waists over 90cm (IIRC) to seek medical advice.The interventions that Mosely (and our own Paul Zimmet and plenty of others) recommend are so simple as to be almost banal. So, what about our parliamentarians volunteer to measure their bellies and those who are over the mark have their u/s scans done (at Health's expense), and make them public (de-identified, of course)?I can think of a couple of Labor MPs who could do the 8 weeks of calorie restriction to their great benefit, and increasing the odds of them seeing their grandchildren married.

"I can think of a couple of Labor MPs who could do the 8 weeks of calorie restriction to their great benefit, and increasing the odds of them seeing their grandchildren married. " Oh why encourage them to do that? The sooner they pass away, the less money wasted on their undeserved, over-bloated parliamentary pensions!!!